Page 22 of Off Limits: The Firsts

I falter, trying to grasp that he’s really going to push the issue, and just when I realize I’ve stopped moving—one hand resting atop his shoulder, the other on his bicep—he turns to face me.

Now we’re body to body, my breasts brushing against his chest while his eyes search mine for the secrets I keep. And we’re close, too close, but neither of us step away. It’s just him and me inside a sunlit stadium with thousands of empty seats as bystanders.

His breath catches. My pulse races. I look away in a desperate attempt to avoid his question and ignore the sudden hum of desire snapping within me like a broken power line twisting in a storm.

Not desperate enough, though, to step back.

“Uh-uh.” Easton’s finger is on my chin, lifting my face so that my eyes scrape over the day-old growth on his chin, up to those lips, and on to the curiosity in his eyes. “What is it, Scout?”

Our gazes lock. Hold. Question without speaking. Sympathize despite not knowing what the other needs.

And it’s odd because we’ve stood like this dozens of times over the past week. When I’m stretching him in warm-up, midway through our exercises, after we throw the ball around for a bit, and again after our routine is completed—but for some reason, this time there’s an intimacy to it.

It’s unnerving. It’s exciting. It can’t happen.

Seconds pass before it hits me where we are, what might be happening—what I think I want to happen—and I push away from him as quickly as I can. The connection is broken.

But the desire remains.

“Sorry.” I shake my head, and without another word, I jog into the dugout toward the locker room, needing space from everything he makes me feel—and from making a huge mistake.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. You’re in the freaking stadium, where anyone from the front office can see you, and you’re standing there like a teenager begging to be kissed. Are you actually going to risk this job for a guy who will be gone and done with you before the post-season begins?

“Scout?”

“You’re good for the day.” Keep walking. Keep moving.

He curses behind me, and then his footsteps fall into pace with mine when I just want them to walk the other way.

Or maybe I don’t want them to.

Hell if I know, because that little moment was enough to mess up my head. Sure, Easton hits all my buttons: hot, athletic, funny, and a bit of a mystery. But in this job, those buttons are pushed all the time. There are plenty of players who fit that bill. It’s everything else that he just made me feel that’s confusing me.

It’s the fact that I wanted him to lean in and kiss me.

It’s the notion that I press up against hard, male bodies all the time—so much so that I’m rarely affected by it—but right now, my body is reacting and wanting and pissed off that it is reacting. Easton Wylder just affected me.

It’s the acknowledgement that for some reason he can see the things I think I’m hiding from the world. He sees them, and has no problem calling me out on them, either.

It’s that right now I feel exposed and raw, and I hate that I am, but at the same time I feel relieved that someone sees it. That I’m not invisible, when lately, that’s all I’ve felt as I’ve worked to secure this job. To succeed in getting the long-term contract. Anything to try and keep my dad holding on.

My footsteps echo down the concrete corridor, the clubhouse all but vacant of players since the team is traveling. I need a minute to clear my head and push away the sudden vulnerability I feel because of everything going on with my dad.

Clear mind, hard heart, Scouty.

Maybe it’s the toll of my emotions, maybe not, but when I enter the empty locker room, my feet falter at the sight. It’s eerie and beautiful and bittersweet all at the same time.

This is how I remember it from when I was a kid. Ford and I would tag along with my dad to work and we’d sit in the empty locker room while he got everything set up for whoever he was in charge of rehabilitating. When the team straggled in, we’d be relegated to the office with a vending machine full of candy we weren’t supposed to eat but would stuff our faces with anyway. We’d giggle at the Mad Libs made naughty with words we weren’t allowed to say in front of our dad—like hell and damn—and then grumble over our homework, which Ford would help me with when it was too hard. It was my dad’s way of keeping us with him—our fear he’d leave us was a constant in those early years after my mom left—but making sure we didn’t get in the way, or hear the cursing, or see the players as they changed.

And every once in a while, depending on how long he worked with a club, the players would come in, kid with us, give us high-fives, and make us feel like we were part of the team.

“What is it?” Easton pulls me from my thoughts. When I look his way I realize his hand is on my upper arm, his head dropped down so he can look into my eyes.

“Isn’t it magical?” I whisper. Oh my god. Did I really just say that? I’m so lame.

His laugh is amused, but the expression on his face as he looks around us—the empty lockers, the hanging jerseys, the nameplates on them—says he has a love/hate relationship with this room. And for a guy who probably grew up here more than anywhere else, the expression, and the curiosity it raises, surprises me.

“Some days it is. Some days it isn’t,” he finally murmurs, confirming my assumption of his mixed feelings as his gaze lands back on mine.